Uzumaki and Uchiha
by Lucillia
Summary: Sasuke and Naruto discover that they're distant cousins after they both activate the Sharingan on the bridge in Wave. Family is family, and they won't let anything happen to the only family they have left, even if they want to strangle each-other.
1. Lineage

There had been stories of children civilian and otherwise finding that they had an unexpected Kekkei Genkai and learning that they had an ancestor from one of the clans that had wandered through the region of their birth before the founding of the villages a few generations before. Most of the stories were disbelieved, though there were a few odd Hyuuga who had never attended the Academy and had seemingly cropped up out of nowhere.

This is the story of one such child. Not one of the mystery Hyuuga, a kid with a random Kekkei Genkai that he supposedly shouldn't have had.

The story could arguably begin in the land of Wave when the Kekkei Genkai had seemingly randomly appeared, but it could also have been said to have started in two different places on the same day nearly eighty years before. One place was the main Uchiha Encampment, the other was an inn several miles away.

While the Uchiha all had houses somewhere, the clan was constantly in demand for missions and battles, which meant that they rarely if ever got to see them and on occasion came home to discover that the house had been looted down to the foundation while they were gone, and that just about everything including things that had been nailed down was missing. As soon as a Uchiha was deemed old enough for travel, most of his or her year was spent living out of a bag in a tent, or just living out of a bag. Life in the camp wasn't all that bad though. There was a sizable band of people who made a living following the Uchiha around providing goods and services for them. Madara's decision to allow the strip show to come within a mile of the camp had been the best one he'd ever made as far as most of the men were concerned.

Inside one of the tents clustered around the central water source that was a well this time which everyone had agreed was a vast improvement over the slightly murky pond, one Uchiha Hikaku was ahem, busy. Uchiha Hikaku was a young man of fairly average height with the long face and pointed chin that was pretty much standard in the clan. He had dark brown hair which he kept up in a short ponytail, and eyes that were ink black when they weren't Sharingan red. He was strong, and well regarded by his peers.

Hikaku's current companion was a rather voluptuous blond with brilliant blue eyes who claimed that her family name was Namikaze. Whether or not this was true was up for debate. She hailed from parts unknown, and had been following the Uchiha around for only a little while. She wasn't as pure as fresh driven snow, nor was she one of those whores that even those who were too ugly to get a girl of their own were afraid to touch. That suited Hikaku just fine since he wasn't looking for a wife at the moment.

While Hikaku was occupied with his companion, several young adolescents were experiencing the joys of a meal that didn't come out of a communal cooking pot half burned at an inn several miles away while their cousin and teacher was occupying himself with other things in a room upstairs. One of the first things a Uchiha learned when he or she joined the clan in their travels for missions was that they were pretty much on their own for food because their fathers, and in some cases mothers, weren't going to cook for them any longer. Buying grub from the camp followers was expensive, and couldn't be done too regularly on the cut they received from the Clan's pay, hence their pooling their resources and having the best cook in the group deal with the cooking. The current best cook of the generation however royally sucked.

This story isn't about the youngsters who were scarfing the food in front of them down as if they'd been starving for weeks despite the fact that the adults in the clan made sure they were provided for in that area even if it meant that they went without. It isn't even about their teacher Uchiha Izuna, co-head of the Uchiha clan and brother to Uchiha Madara even though he has a small part in it which come to think about it is about to pretty much come to an end.

Izuna kissed the sleeping woman who had shared his bed one last time as he got up to get dressed. He knew that he was going to get a talking to or rather yelling at from his brother over this. The Uzumaki were related to and allied with the Senju, therefore making it a strong possibility that the woman he'd met while herding the brats to some minor training mission was a spy. It didn't matter though, what was done was done, and what was done was fun.

Izuna would come to regret leaving the woman while she was asleep. She stopped chasing him eventually when she became too pregnant to run, but the damage was done and as far as he and Madara were concerned, if they never heard the word "Dattebayo" again, it would be too soon. By that point, Izuna didn't care whether or not the child was actually his, he never wanted to see its mother or her brothers again, and if the kid was like any of them...

While a certain Uzumaki was giving birth to a rather beautiful daughter with hair so dark red it was almost black and inky black eyes in the land of Whirlpool, a certain blonde was giving birth to a brown haired son with inky black eyes in a place that would soon become part of the land of Fire. Neither child would meet the other during their lifetimes, and neither child would show any sign of developing the Sharingan. Unlike the Byakugan, the gene that allowed the Uchiha to unlock their Kekkei Genkai was recessive.

Izuna's daughter would grow up to be quite the beauty, and would gain one hell of a reputation on the battlefield. Eventually, she settled down and married another Uzumaki. They ended up having a lovely daughter and several healthy sons all with the standard Uzumaki features and dark eyes. The daughter would show no signs of the Sharingan, though one of her brothers would shortly before he died in battle.

Hikaku's son would grow up to be a reasonably handsome if rather average shinobi who would survive the First Shinobi War. He ended up settling down with a rather beautiful platinum blonde medic he'd met after becoming injured. They would have a blond haired, blue eyed son who showed absolutely no signs of having the Sharingan.

Neither Izuna's granddaughter nor Hikaku's grandson would meet. Izuna's Granddaughter would marry another Uzumaki, and Hikaku's grandson would marry a rather pretty Chunin with sun blond hair and blue eyes. Apparently, Hikaku's preference for blonds had been handed down the line.

It had been Izuna's great-granddaughter and Hikaku's great-grandson who met. Neither Uzumaki Kushina nor her Academy classmate turned boyfriend turned husband Namikaze Minato Yondaime Hokage of Konoha had any inkling that they were related to the rather sizable clan that also made its home in Konoha as Minato's grandfather had considered the man who raised him to be his father and never said anything about the man who had sired him to his children, and Kushina's grandmother had only gotten a terse "He's dead" in reply to any questions she'd asked about her father. Neither Kushina nor Minato had shown signs of having the Sharingan, though there had been some questions about exactly how Minato had been able to keep up with things when he was using the Hiraishin to take down fifty to a hundred opponents practically all at once.

On the day Kushina and Minato's son Naruto was born, Uchiha Madara attacked. While he was removing the Kyuubi from Kushina, he found himself wondering about a certain possibility after hearing the woman say "Dattebane", and deciding not to think on it any further. While there may have been something of a resemblance about the eyes, the Uzumaki woman didn't look anything like his brother Izuna, and that annoying verbal tic was more than likely a common problem amongst the Uzumaki.

Twelve years later, on a bridge in the land of Wave under a dome of ice mirrors, two boys suddenly found it much easier to track their exceedingly fast opponent, and when Uchiha Sasuke had briefly looked his teammate in the eyes he'd gotten the shock of his life when he'd found another pair of Sharingan looking back into his own.

He managed to get out a surprised "What..." before several senbon temporarily took him down for the count.


	2. Reactions

Sasuke stared at his teammate from his position on a futon in Tazuna's home. He wondered if he'd imagined what he'd seen on the bridge before the fake Hunter-nin's senbon had pierced him and rendered him unconscious. That had to be the case. He couldn't even contemplate the other option.

Naruto was not family. Not only was the dead last's name Uzumaki, but blond Uchiha were almost completely unheard of. Brown was the dominant Uchiha hair color with black coming in at a close second. The few blond Uchiha in existance at the time of the Massacre had a shade of hair that was closer to brown than platinum or sun yellow like the dobe had. Naruto bore almost no resemblance to the other members of his clan, though there was something about the shape of his eyes that was naggingly familiar.

How could this...this Outsider have the Sharingan?

Finding out that their sensei had the Sharingan had been jarring enough. Kakashi had it in only one eye however, and his looked to have been implanted. He'd heard of such procedures, but had never encountered a person who'd had one before Kakahsi. Naruto's Sharingan had appeared to be completely natural however. How could Naruto have a natural Sharingan when he had blue eyes though? Almsot everyone in his clan who had developed the Sharingan had eyes that were black, brown, or dark gray.

He would have to shelve this problem for later when he had more resources at hand. There was no way he could solve it now so far from Konoha and the clan records that might shed some light on this unusual situation.

&!&!&!&

Kakashi briefly wondered how Naruto had gotten the Sharingan since he knew for a fact that Naruto was Minato-sensei's son as he had tested the boy himself using some of Minato-sensei's hair that he'd kept for some odd reason when he was younger, and still kept since he had so few mementos of his late sensei and father figure. He ended up deciding that it was something that must have cropped up from his mother's line since if he remembered correctly, Kushina had what was commonly referred to in Konoha as the Uchiha chin.

Kushina-san had never mentioned being related to the Uchiha in all of the time he'd known her, but considering the fact that unlike the Samurai who could trace their lineage back for centuries, a great deal of shinobi couldn't accurately trace their families back more than five generations or so, it was entirely possible that Kushina-san hadn't known she had been.

When he got to Konoha and made his post mission report, he saved the best bit for last.

"Sasuke has activated his Sharingan." he said.

The Hokage smiled at this, as did the Council that consisted of the rest of his former Genin team. Apparently, they'd been worried that Sasuke wouldn't do so since such late activations were rare, and were relieved that it was not so.

"As has Naruto." he continued casually.

He was treated to the sight of the Hokage almost swallowing his lit pipe. Koharu and Homura both looked like they were going to have heart attacks.

"I-I think I misheard you." Koharu said when she finally found her voice "You just said that Naruto had...?"

"Activated his Sharingan." he replied casually.

Senju Tobirama's students all blinked at the same time and stared at him.

"Kushina." Homura finally said. "Has to be. I ran the genetic comparison between that boy and his father five times."

"Five times?" Koharu asked.

"Whether or not it was deserved, Kushina had a bit of a reputation, so naturally I had my doubts." Homura said.

"But still, five times?" Koharu said.

He decided to get out of there. He'd seen one of the famous Team Tobirama arguments once before, and had no desire to see one ever again. From the looks of things Homura was going to step on the hidden trap, and Koharu was going to explode.

&!&!&!&

Sasuke choked on dust as he furiously flipped through the clan records frantically searching for the name Uzumaki. There was nothing in his generation or his parent's or his grandparent's for that matter. Eventually, after hours of searching clan lists and complicated genealogy charts, he finally found it. Underneath the names of Uchiha Izuna and some Uzumaki woman whose given name had been blotted out was "Possible child, gender unknown". There was a birth year for this child that was nearly eighty years ago.

That had to be it. There was nothing else that could possibly fit.

Since his mother was also of Izuna's line, this apparently made him and Naruto something along the lines of third cousins.

&!&!&!&

Naruto stared in the mirror. It had taken a while, but he'd figured out how to activate that Sharingan thing on command. The Sharingan was the Uchiha clan's Kekkei Genkai thing. Did that make him a Uchiha? Did all of his family die when the Uchiha did? Had his parents been living in the Uchiha district all of his life before the Massacre?

The Old Man had told him that his parents had died on the day of the Kyuubi attack, but other people had said that his parents hadn't wanted him and that they were too ashamed to even be associated with him. Who was right?

The Old Man cared about him. Had the Old Man lied to him to protect his feelings?

He realized how long it was he'd been staring when the room outside his open bathroom door began to get dark. If he didn't hurry, he'd be late to meet Iruka-sensei if he wasn't already. After quickly washing his face and hands since that was what he'd come in there for before he'd gotten distracted by his eyes again, he raced out of his apartment and down to Ichiraku Ramen.

Iruka was sitting there waiting for him, and when he arrived the man joked that since he'd had his first C-rank he should be treating _him_ to ramen.

"No way!" he yelled before he made his order.

&!&!&!&

Iruka studied Naruto as he picked at his meal. That was so unlike the normally enthusiastic boy who would eat him out of house and home if he could. After the initial enthusiasm over his ramen had died, Naruto had started becoming distracted and withdrawn.

"What is it Naruto?" he asked as he watched the boy play with his third bowl of ramen.

"Iruka-sensei? Do you know who my parents are?" Naruto asked.

"No." he replied honestly. Beyond the fact that Naruto was an Uzumaki and that the Uzumaki were originally from Whirlpool, he knew nothing about the boy's heritage. "Why do you ask?"

"The old man said that my parents died in the Kyuubi attack, but..." Naruto said, leaving the sentence unfinished.

Great. Someone had been saying nasty things about Naruto's parents, and it had gotten to him.

"If the Hokage said that they died in the Kyuubi attack, then that's when they died. Whoever told you otherwise was lying." he said. He'd been one of the camp that had believed that the Uzumaki boy's parents had abandoned him until the Hokage had flat out told him that they had died. He hadn't known exactly when they died, and learning it had been then was a surprise. It was truly ironic that the attack that had taken his parents had also taken Naruto's. It was even more ironic that the monster that had killed Naruto's parents was sealed within their son.

"What's got you thinking about your parents now?" he asked, gently interrogating the boy in hopes of getting the name of the person whom he was either going to give a severe beating to or a good yelling at depending on their age.

Naruto turned to him and blinked. When he opened his eyes, they were red. Sharingan red.

"Holy..."

&!&!&!&

"How did your mission go?" Sakura's mother asked her over dinner.

"Okay." Sakura replied. There were certain things about her mission in Wave that she couldn't share even with her parents.

"Did anything interesting happen?" Sakura's mother asked.

"Both Sasuke-kun and Naruto activated their Kekkei Genkai." Sakura replied, figuring that little detail was safe enough to share since it would be getting around the village soon.

"What is the de- er Uzumaki boy's Kekkei Genkai?" his mother asked, sounding worried.

"The Sharingan, just like Sasuke." she replied.

Her mother dropped her chopsticks and her father choked on his water.

"Using one of _Them _was rather clever considering..." her father eventually said after a long silence.

"Shh dear, we can't talk about _That_." her mother said, giving her a significant look.

The meal ended in silence. Sakura went up to her room afterward burning with curiosity about what it was that her parents couldn't talk about in front of her.

&!&!&!&

Danzo picked up his evening report on any and all important happenings within the village with a small smile and started to read. Ten seconds later, he sprayed tea all over it.


	3. Family Tree

Naruto went to his training with a slightly lighter heart, only slightly due to the fact that he still had no clue who his parents were, and either way they were dead. Iruka had comforted him and explained things to him the night before. As for why he was Uzumaki rather than Uchiha, Iruka said that there had been a great deal of confusion in the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack when hundreds of new orphans flooded the system. It was entirely possible that someone had screwed up the paperwork somewhere.

Sasuke was already at the training grounds when he arrived, as was Sakura. Sasuke looked as if he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep the night before, and it clearly hadn't improved his mood considering the fact that he was actually snapping at Sakura rather than sitting there and silently ignoring her pawing and constant "Sasuke-kun this, Sasuke-kun that, Why don't we go on a date Sasuke-kun? Sasuke-kun, Sasuke-kun, Sasuke-kun".

Sasuke was the first to notice his presence, and looked up at him. Oddly enough, the other boy wasn't giving him that look of cold dismissal, that look that stated that he was not worth his regard because he was so far beneath him it wasn't even funny that he always gave him. Instead, Sasuke looked...nervous?

"It took me a while, but I think I figured out how we're related." Sasuke said when he reached his teammates.

"Really?" he asked. The Old Man hadn't been able to tell him who his parents were. Alot of people had died the day of the Kyuubi attack, and many were still unidentified. It was possible that his real parents were amongst those who still lay unclaimed. When he was younger, the Old Man had told him that he'd been found next to the body of a woman named Uzumaki who had recently given birth. It was entirely possible that his mother had asked the Uzumaki woman to evacuate him during the confusion, and the Uzumaki woman hadn't made it. If the Uzumaki woman had recently given birth, he could have naturally been mistaken for her baby.

"I believe that you're my third cousin through Uchiha Izuna." Sasuke said as he pulled out an old scroll and unfurled it. He then pointed to a spot on the scroll.

"Why don't they know what the baby is or have a name for it?" he asked as he looked at the spot where the Izuna guy's name was next to that of an Uzumaki.

"The person I believe to be your great-great-grandmother went back to her homeland before the child was born." Sasuke said.

"So I really am an Uzumaki." he said. That was a relief. He'd spent the night afraid that he'd been running around with someone else's name. He'd even had a nightmare where the real baby of the Uzumaki woman he'd been found next to had come and demanded that he give him his name back. The Uzumaki woman he'd been found next to really had been his mother, though that left the question of why he'd been found next to her if the Yondaime had sealed the fox inside him. Maybe she'd been there to watch it happen to make sure he didn't die and got killed by a stray swipe from the Kyuubi. As for how he had the Sharingan thing, he just had the same great-grandpa or whatever as Sasuke, and got it from him.

"Yes, and you're also a Uchiha." Sasuke said. There was an odd look in his eyes when he said it. It reminded him of the feeling he had when he watched other children go home with their parents while he was left out all alone to look after himself.

"Okay." he said as he settled into his usual spot while waiting for Kakashi-sensei. He didn't know what else to say. It was strange, he had family, and that family was Sasuke of all people.

"I found a picture of a cousin of ours that you resemble somewhat." Sasuke said as he refurled the scroll they'd been looking at and put it away.

"Really?" he asked.

&!&!&!&

Sasuke pulled out the photograph of his mother's younger cousin who had died before he and Naruto were born. There was a strange tight, almost painful feeling in his chest. Naruto hadn't rejected him. He'd gotten maybe two hours of sleep before he'd come here, and in those two hours he'd had a dream in which Naruto had firmly rejected him because of how he'd treated him over the years, and had told him exactly where he could shove the Uchiha Clan and how.

He'd been rather tactful when mentioning Naruto's ancestor. He'd found Uchiha Izuna's journals in the clan archives, and Naruto's Great-great-grandmother had been described as a "Howling witch" who had chased their great-great-grandfather halfway across the continent before her brothers came, beat him up, and dragged her back to some place called Whirlpool. The word "Dattebayo" ended up haunting their great-great-grandfather's nightmares until the day he died.

He was damn glad Naruto wasn't a girl. Having him as a fangirl probably would have killed him.

When he showed Naruto the picture of cousin Obito who bore something of a resemblance to him despite the fact that Obito had black hair and black eyes, and Naruto was a blond with blue eyes, he decided not to mention that he'd encountered Obito's name before in his father's older journals, mainly in conjunction with the words "Idiot" and "Moron".

Naruto asked a bunch of painful questions about his.._their..._their family that he hadn't really wanted to answer while they waited for their perpetually tardy sensei to arrive.

&!&!&!&

Kakashi showed up with a "I was helping an old lady carry her groceries home." when he'd felt he'd kept his little team waiting long enough. Naruto turning out to have the Sharingan had solved a bit of a problem for him. When it came to the saying "Those who can't do teach." the converse was also true. He hadn't been allowed to reject _this_ team however, and hadn't known what to do with it once he got it.

With Sasuke it had been a waiting game over the Sharingan. Once Sasuke had the Sharingan, it would have been easy, just Monkey see, Monkey do then done. Sakura didn't seem to care too much about her ninja career, so he'd decided to set her to pretty much the standard Academy forms until she decided to take things seriously. If she decided to take things seriously, he would have found a way to foist her off onto someone else. There were a sizable number of people who owed him favors, including Maito Gai.

With Naruto however...With Naruto, he had the feeling that he should be teaching his sensei's son like he said he would while the child was still inside his mother. He just didn't know where or how to begin. The boy was a total mess when the Academy finally turned him loose on the world in that overbright jumpsuit.

Now that Naruto had the Sharingan, he had an idea as to what to do. Naruto could play Monkey see, Monkey do with Sasuke.

Smiling at Naruto and Sakura's antics, he chucked a scroll at Sakura and called the boys over...

&!&!&!&

Sakura sighed. About the only time she saw her family these days was at dinner. She was up with the sun almost every morning and out the door before mother had breakfast finished.

"So, how did your day go?" her mother asked.

"Pretty good actually. After training, we got a D-rank walking dogs. Naruto took the biggest dog and it dragged him straight into a trap field. Sasuke-kun yelled at the dog's owner for like ten minutes straight when the mission was over." she replied.

"Really?" her mother asked.

"By the way, Sasuke-kun and Naruto figured out how they were related." Sakura said. "They're both great-great-grandsons of Uchiha Izuna."

"That name sounds familiar." her father said with a frown. Her father was a history buff and was practically obsessed with anything related to the founding of Konoha.

"He was Uchiha Madara's younger brother." she said. She knew this fact because she'd gotten a good look at the family tree that Sasuke had shown Naruto when Sasuke had asked her to guard it with her life while he and Naruto were sparring.

Her mother choked on her food at this.

"What the hell was the Yondaime thinking? I'd sooner trust a fox to guard a goddamn henhouse!" her father yelled.

"Darling!" her mother said. "Shut the hell up before..."

"Sorry dear." her father replied.

Sakura went to bed once again wondering what it was her parents couldn't tell her, and wondering what the Yondaime had to do with it.


	4. Clan Symbols

Naruto stared down at the shirt Sasuke had given him when he'd shown up for training. It was nice of the teme to give him a present but...

The shirt was blue. It was blue, and it had that stupid looking fan on the back of it. That stupid looking fan that he'd used for target practice more times than he could count over the years. That stupid looking fan that had meant "Police!" in his earlier memories from before the Uchiha Massacre that he couldn't really believe he'd been stupid enough to forget about.

"Put it on." Sasuke said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Clan law states that anyone who has the Sharingan is a Uchiha." Sasuke said. "All Uchiha shinobi are to wear the symbol of our clan."

"But it's blue." he said. It wasn't that he wasn't appreciative of the gift, but orange was his color. It always had been since forever. Not only that, but it looked like it would actually fit, which was a bit of a problem. One of his tricks for escaping larger and stronger opponents was wriggling out of his clothes. Doing so was much harder when they actually fit.

"Wear that for now. We'll get an orange one later if you insist." Sasuke said, making a face at the idea of an orange shirt for some reason.

Sighing, he pulled off his jacket and pulled the blue shirt over his mesh top. The damn thing had that silly wide collar like the one on Sasuke's shirt which he'd amused himself with by tossing things into it on several occasions.

Kakashi-sensei did a slight double-take when he saw what he was wearing when he finally deigned to show up.

&!&!&!&

Sasuke brought Naruto to the shinobi outfitters where he usually purchased his clothing after training and missions were over for the day. As he predicted, Naruto had grabbed something that was baggy and orange and had way too many pockets. He would have to have a very serious discussion with the boy later about proper attire. For now, he would try to make sure that what the boy picked at least fit.

It was true that clan law stated that all who had the Sharingan were Uchiha, but how the clan had usually interpreted that law was counter to how he had chosen to interpret it in this case. Had he followed tradition, he would have rather swiftly become the last Uchiha in Konoha, and someone would have been stuck with the task of mopping up Naruto's blood and preparing him for burial. There were too few Uchiha left now to follow that bloody tradition though. Naruto was family, his blood, his kin. Naruto would be helping him restore the clan when the time came. Naruto was to be protected, especially if Itachi decided to come back and follow that tradition for his own personal amusement.

When they got to the counter, the old man who rang up their purchases went to the back room behind the counter, and returned with a small box that he blew a great deal of dust off the top of. He then opened the box and pulled out several copies of the symbol of the...Namikaze clan?

"That's not the right clan symbol." he said.

"It's not?" the cashier asked in surprise. "I could've sworn it was."

The cashier came back with another dust covered box, a slightly larger one this time that had an odd design carved into the top and sides unlike the plain box that contained the symbol of the Namikaze clan. This one contained the symbol of the Senju clan.

"That's not right either." he said.

"Really?" the cashier asked.

The cashier came back with a much larger box - a cardboard one that didn't have a speck of dust on it this time - that contained the red spiral that was on the back of Naruto's jacket as well as on the backs of every Konoha uniform.

"Not that one either." he said, wondering what the cashier was playing at. The old man had tried to play this sort of game with him once, but he'd only brought out the wrong box one time instead of three.

"Really? And which one is the correct one then?" the cashier asked.

"The Uchiha fan." he replied coldly.

"His father was a Namikaze, and there's more Senju in him than Uchiha, and more Uzumaki than both." the cashier grumbled as he grabbed the box that contained the Uchiha fans, pulled out several, and started attaching them to the back of Naruto's new shirts and coat in a manner that suggested that he would rather not.

&!&!&!&

Akihara Satoshi scowled as he watched the son of the bastard everyone knew but couldn't prove had summoned the Kyuubi lead the Kyuubi's jailor away. He'd seen the small thread of Uchiha when the Uzumaki boy's father had stood on the seal he'd kept to insure that no-one wore marks they weren't entitled to many years earlier. The thread was also present in the son, but it was not wide enough for him to consider the boy Uchiha.

The part of his job that he considered to be the most important was the guarding of the clan symbols, and the insuring that they went to those of the proper heritage.

As far as he was concerned, the boy who had just left was Namikaze first as that had been his father's clan, Senju second as that had been in both parents' lines, Uzumaki third as that was his mother's clan, and Uchiha last if at all as the boy was 1/8 Uchiha at the most, like his father. The arrogant little Uchiha bastard had stood there and coldly took almost all of the Uzumaki child's heritage away from him. He understood why the Hokage had chosen the Uzumaki name considering the great things the Namikaze boy had grown up to do, and the enemies he made while doing them, but this...

"More Senju than Uchiha." he grumbled as he put the boxes away for another day, knowing that two of them wouldn't be used in a good long time if ever again. Almost all of the small number of people who still bore the Senju name were civilians, and didn't show any inclination to be otherwise. As for the Namikaze, the Uchiha boy had just ensured that their clan symbol would forever gather dust, like so many others that were stored in the back room.


	5. Dumpster Diving

Sasuke frowned as he studied Naruto. The more he looked at him, the more possible it seemed. Namikaze. Naruto was related to the Yondaime somehow, probably a nephew or a cousin. The Namikaze clan was small, small enough that he'd never encountered a Namikaze in his life, and had apparently virtually died out at some point if the dust on the box that contained copies of their clan symbol for attachment to clothing purchases was anything to judge by. Considering the war that had taken place shortly before he and Naruto were born and the Kyuubi attack, it was entirely possible that Naruto was the last of the Namikaze bloodline.

The fact that Naruto had Senju blood was even less of a surprise. Every clan in Konoha had blood ties to the Senju, including a small portion of his own before the Massacre. The relatives with Senju blood were often mocked within the privacy of the compound. All of them came from minor families within the clan, and had no hope of marrying into the family of the Clan Head before they died.

The Uzumaki was no surprise at all, considering Naruto's surname which if he had anything to say about it would soon be changed.

Naruto was a Uchiha. Whatever else he may have been was irrelevant.

"What was that all about back at the shop dattebayo?" Naruto asked as he pulled on his new coat which wasn't nearly as eye-searing a shade of orange as his old clothes had been. Honestly, he preferred the short-sleeved hoodie that Naruto used to wear back when they were nine.

"I really don't know." he said. "The old man once tried to give me the symbol of some obscure clan, something to do with my father that I really hadn't been paying attention to."

He had been paying attention that day, but Naruto didn't need to know that. The only reason he'd returned to that shop after such an insult was that it was the best in Konoha. He'd heard the rumors about his father before when he had been small, and did as his parents suggested, which was to ignore them. It stung however every time he'd heard the covert whispers about how the son of an _Outsider_ was leading the clan. His father had proven he belonged in his position several times over however.

"The old man probably thinks that you're the Yondaime's cousin or something." he continued. "You look like you could be."

"The Yondaime's cousin? Really?" Naruto asked, with little stars in his eyes. From the looks of things, Naruto was about a half second away from going back to the shop and getting the Namikaze clan symbol put on all of his clothing.

"I wouldn't try wearing the Namikaze clan symbol if I were you." he said, deciding to cut Naruto off at the pass. "Iwa swore revenge on the Yondaime's family and will kill any of his clan that they encounter. Besides, you're Uchiha."

From the look on Naruto's face when he mentioned Iwa's plans for revenge on the Yondaime's relatives whether they were real or not, it seemed that Naruto wouldn't be wearing anything but the red and white uchiwa on his clothing any time soon.

"What was that whole thing with the Senju?" Naruto asked as they approached his apartment building, apparently still pondering the old shopkeeper's antics.

"Just about everyone in Konoha has Senju blood in them, you've probably got a tiny bit more than most." he replied. "You're still Uchiha."

"I'm also related to the Shodaime, the Nidaime, and the Yondaime. There's no way in hell I won't become Hokage!" Naruto yelled.

He and Naruto watched in complete shock as a patrolling ANBU missed a jump, fell off the roof of Naruto's apartment building, and landed in a dumpster instead of leaping to the roof of the building next to it.

Naruto raced over to the dumpster and peered inside.

"Hey ANBU-san, are you alright?" Naruto asked.

He received a groan in response.

He and Naruto turned to look at each-other. This was so far out of his realm of experience it wasn't even funny. He came up with the only response he could think of at the time, which was the method he used for sorting out disputes with his cousins that weren't worth bothering tou-san over.

"Loser gets the medics." he said as he put out a fist.

He threw scissors, Naruto threw rock. He was almost completely winded when he reached the hospital, having run faster than he ever had in his entire life.

"What seems to be the problem Uchiha-san?" the nurse in the front lobby of the hospital asked.

"ANBU...fell off roof...landed in dumpster..." he managed to gasp out when he finally started to catch his breath.

"This I've gotta see!" one of the standby medics yelled as he grabbed a first aid kit and prepared to follow him out the door.

He felt like he was going to die by the time they reached Naruto's apartment building. The ANBU was still lying in the dumpster, and Naruto was talking at him. Every third word seemed to be "Ramen".

"What seems to be the problem ANBU-san?" the medic asked with a shit-eating grin.

Two more medics appeared as the ANBU summarized the situation with a rather liberal use of swearwords, some of which were new to him, and he'd thought he'd heard everything before after his father had had a particularly bad day at the office which had ended with him coming home completely covered in orange glitter. One of the medics had a camera, and was taking pictures "for evidentiary purposes should the ANBU wish to press charges against Uzumaki Naruto". He had a sneaking suspicion that the pictures were going to be put to a different use if the grin on the man's face was any indication.

Eventually, after giving a statement to the medics and another ANBU that had shown up out of nowhere, he and Naruto made their way to Naruto's apartment with the packages that contained Naruto's new clothes. His first impression upon seeing Naruto's apartment was...Naruto would be better off living elsewhere.

The apartment building wasn't the best, so he knew not to expect a penthouse suite say. Like the building, the apartment wasn't the best, nor was it the worst either. While not in the best shape, it was at least structurally sound, and didn't look to be infested with insects, arachnids, or rodents. The furniture looked to be older than Naruto by several years if not decades, and Naruto's housekeeping skills left a great deal to be desired. He would have to teach Naruto how to clean up after himself amongst other things.

"Pack up." he said when Naruto had set his new clothes down on a table.

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"You're moving to the Uchiha district." he replied.

"Why?" Naruto asked, looking shocked and confused.

"You're a Uchiha, and that's where you belong." he replied. It was as simple as that. The Uchiha district was home to the Uchiha, and Naruto was a Uchiha.

Life in the Uchiha district had been lonely with only him to occupy it, only him and his memories. Now there was another to share the virtually empty district that was a daily reminder of his loss and reason for revenge with him. He was sure that life with the Dobe would be many things, but there was one thing it would not be, and that was boring.


	6. Rats and Rumors

Naruto refused to pack. He'd let Sasuke boss him around so far since he was his cousin, and most of what he said and did seemed to make some sort of sense. He was Uchiha, so he wore the Uchiha fan, even if he thought it looked totally stupid. That he understood. Moving to the Uchiha district however...

He wouldn't move there even if Sasuke offered him the biggest house in the place. Besides being fucking creepy, someone had seriously been neglecting the upkeep there. He should know, he'd wandered around the place a few times after dark. No matter what the Teme said, he would be staying in his nice cozy rat-free apartment. Seriously, the rats in the Uchiha district could eat Kiba's dog. Heck, they could eat Kiba.

Sasuke ordered him to pack once again. He'd been quiet about Sasuke's demands because he was trying to be nice to the only family he had in the village, or at least the only acknowledged family he had in the village. He would be quiet no longer.

"Uh-uh, not doing it. I'm staying here where I know I won't get my face gnawed off in my sleep dattebayo." he said. "The Uchiha district's got rats the size of Akamaru."

Sasuke looked stunned at this for some strange reason, or at least stunned in that oddly apathetic way Sasuke managed. He had vague memories of an older boy who did that, one of the ANBU if he remembered correctly. Some bastard had given the unfortunate sod Monkey's shift on the day he'd finally gotten the prank for that jerk set up, and ponytail boy who now that he thought about it could have been a Uchiha ended up getting caught in it. The poor bastard had actually landed in the same dumpster that that other ANBU guy landed in earlier. His landing was a bit softer though since it was full at the time.

"Rats?" Sasuke asked.

"Yeah, big honkin' ones. They're effing everywhere dattebayo." he replied, wondering why Sasuke didn't know this since he actually lived in the Uchiha district. "How could you have not seen them?"

"Would you care to show me these rats?" Sasuke asked as if he didn't believe him.

"Sure. Meet me at the gate at, say eight or so." he replied.

"I'm usually in bed by eight." Sasuke said.

"Why?" he asked, wondering why someone would go to bed that freaking early.

"It's my bedtime." Sasuke replied.

"Tch. Whatever." he said.

&!&!&!&

Kiba did a slight double-take when he saw Naruto as he was heading home. The boy was wearing a new jacket, a jacket that didn't look like the one he'd worn for the last two years straight. There had been a time when he'd believed that Naruto had only one outfit since his clothes were always dirty, but Shikamaru had somehow figured out that Naruto had three identical copies of the same outfit like most of the rest of them. Sakura had five identical copies of that red dress of hers, and Sasuke had the most at seven identical copies of that stupid shirt and five pair of those dumb shorts.

"Hey Naruto, I see that you finally decided to change your clothes." Kiba said. Naruto usually changed the style of his attire at a rate of about once every two years or so as opposed to once a year like the rest of the class.

"Yeah, neat huh?" Naruto said as he spun around so he could take in the entire outfit.

One little detail stood out immediately, namely the big honkin' red and white uchiwa fan on the back of Naruto's new jacket.

"Naruto, why the hell are you wearing the Uchiha Clan symbol?" he asked.

"Because I'm a Uchiha." Naruto replied.

"No you're not!" he said, wondering why the hell Naruto was pretending to be a Uchiha, and why Sasuke hadn't beaten him up for it. Naruto was always chasing around after Sasuke, trying to be as good as him, but to go this far...

"Yes I am!" Naruto yelled back.

Naruto's eyes turned red. Red with black dots in them. Sharingan. He really wanted to know how the hell the other boy managed to do that since Naruto sucked royally at Genjutsu.

It was at that point that one of the Hyuuga that had been wandering around the marketplace that he'd been cutting through took one look at Naruto and yelled "Holy Shit!". Several people turned to see the source of the outburst, and upon noticing the Hyuuga's active Byakugan a mob of rather pissed-off women chased him out of the marketplace.

Several people turned to look at Naruto. Oddly enough, many of them didn't look surprised to see that Naruto seemed to have the Sharingan. His sensitive ears picked up several hissed whispers of "Madara's eyes" as Naruto walked off to some appointment he had after excusing himself.

Just what the hell was going on?

&!&!&!&

Naruto met Sasuke at the Gate of the Uchiha district at the appointed time. From the looks of things, Sasuke had been training practically since the moment he'd left his apartment.

"So, let's go and see these _alleged_ rats." Sasuke said.

"Okay." he replied. It was just dark enough for the creatures to be out and about.

As they wandered through the silent and dark district, he asked about the buildings, trying to overcome his nervousness. One thing he was afraid of besides the ginormous rats were ghosts. He didn't know why people didn't believe him when he said he saw one. He saw the ghost back when he was eight. He'd woken up one night to find a dark haired man in a strange mask with only one eye hole sitting there staring at him. When he threw the kunai he kept under his pillow just in case one of the villagers who gave him those hateful looks all the time got any big ideas at the man, it had gone straight through him and into the wall behind him. Somehow, he could tell that the man - or ghost rather - was exceedingly pissed at him for throwing the kunai at him as he vanished an instant later.

"What's that building over there?" he asked as he pointed to a rather nondescript building near the middle of the district.

"That's the Clan Library." Sasuke replied.

"I'll bet it has a ton of awesome jutsus inside. I can't wait to learn them all!" he said.

Sasuke sighed deeply at this for some reason.

"Why does everyone assume that the Uchiha clan library is chock full of Jutsu scrolls?" Sasuke practically moaned.

"You mean it isn't?" he asked.

"If you could remember practically every jutsu you ever saw for the rest of your life, would you really write the information down and leave it where some Outsider could sneak in and steal it?" Sasuke asked.

"When you put it that way..." he muttered, feeling embarrassed for yet again speaking without stopping to think. While he still wanted his name on the KIA memorial so he could be remembered as one of the village's greatest heroes, he didn't want that happening until he was old and gray like the Old Man and had several decades as Hokage under his belt. That way, the entry on the memorial stone would have the title Hokage next to it, just like the ones for the Shodaime, Nidaime, and Yondaime. Uzumaki, er Uchiha Naruto Godaime Hokage had a nice ring to it.

"So what is in the library?" he asked, honestly curious to learn what his and Sasuke's clan had considered worth keeping in their library.

"Clan records, genealogy charts, some of our ancestors' journals, books on just about everything under the sun." Sasuke replied.

It was at that point that the scurrying finally started. A rat that would give one of the larger Inuzuka nin-dogs a run for their money popped out of a hole near the foundation of one of the houses. All over the district, the rats went on the move, prowling their territory for the night, hissing, fighting, mating, and gnawing on just about anything and everything.

How could Sasuke have not known about this?

&!&!&!&

Hyuuga Hiashi sat impassively listening to the report one of the Branch members was giving him. He'd heard the rumors that had been flying through the civilian population. If certain civilians were to be believed, the Kyuubi's Jinchuriki was a descendant of none other than Uchiha Madara himself. He'd learned to take such rumors with a grain of salt long ago.

"How were you able to discern this?" he asked. According to the Branch member, he'd only gotten a glimpse of the Sharingan, and that left the question of why he'd had his Byakugan active at the time.

"I was um..." the Branch member said, sounding slightly embarrassed.

"You were looking through people's clothes again weren't you?" he said.

The red flush and squeak that was oddly reminiscent of his elder daughter was all the answer he needed. Most Hyuuga seemed to go through this phase during their teens. It usually passed by the time one reached their mid-twenties and their hormones began to settle. Most Hyuuga were discreet about this and didn't get themselves caught. The particular Branch member in front of him however was usually caught at least once a week.

He would have to deal with that later. For now however, he had to ponder the latest revelations about Uzumaki Kushina's son. That woman had packed quite a punch when they were children, and he'd rather quickly learned that it was best not to get caught looking through her clothes a second time.

&!&!&!&

Uchiha Madara frowned as he read the latest reports on the rumors coming out of Konoha. This couldn't be right. Back when he was young he - apparently unlike his brother and half of his clan for that matter - actually knew what a condom was and how to correctly use it.


	7. The Senju Exterminators

Senju Aramaki sighed as he flipped through his magazine. It had been a rather slow week. Come to think of it, it had been a rather slow month. As he was reading an article on baking tips for housewives, the bell above the door tinkled. He turned around to find Uchiha Sasuke walking in. Uhiha Sasuke who was as arrogant as and had a worse attitude than most of his late and mostly unlamented clan combined. There had been a time when he'd pitied the child, but...

"Uchiha-sama." he said in his "trying to be nice to customers he'd rather have drop dead" tone of voice. "What can I do for you this afternoon?"

"I came to talk to you about a set of pest control seals that were supposed to be good for a decade." The Uchiha boy said, sounding as if he were barely restraining a great deal of anger.

"What about them?" he asked.

The Uchiha boy slammed a rather sizable dead rat down on the counter.

"Can you explain why there are thousands of these running around the district when father had those seals put in only eight years ago?" the Uchiha boy asked.

"Thousands?" he squeaked in a totally manly manner.

Great, just fucking great. Kaneda had cut corners again and he was going to have to pay for it. His family had been exterminators for three generations and were the best in Konoha, so good that the Uchiha had chosen to ignore the fact that they were Senju in both blood and name when they had contracted for their services. Thanks to Kaneda's lazy ways however, that reputation was seriously slipping. The last thing they needed was a scandal the likes of this one seemed to be shaping up to be.

"The extermination service will be free, as will the replacement seals which I will see to personally." he ground out.

The next time he saw Kaneda, he was a dead man. Brother or no, there were some things you just didn't let slide.

&!&!&!&

Naruto yawned as he answered the door. His team had a day off, and he had been catching up on sleep. He probably should have gotten up earlier considering the fact that it was mid-afternoon, but he felt that he deserved a lazy day in bed considering all the shit he'd gone through recently. He hadn't had one of those in a good long time. When he opened the door, it had been to find his cousin on his doorstep with a couple bags at his feet.

"Can I stay with you?" Sasuke asked.

"Why?" he asked, though he had a sneaking suspicion as to what the answer might be considering what he and Sasuke had been doing the night before, namely running from the biggest and meanest rats to ever grace Fire Country with their presence.

"The exterminators are going to be spraying the entire district with rat poison, and it won't be livable for the next week or so." Sasuke replied.

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever. I hope you brought your futon since all I've got is the bed, and I'm not sharing it with you." he replied as he moved aside to let his cousin in.

&!&!&!&

Aramaki sighed in relief as he went from house to house. Everything had been properly sealed away and stored somewhere before he arrived. He couldn't count the number of times he'd been forced to sit there waiting for a homeowner to finish putting their crap away before he could get his job done. Almost all of those homeowners had been rude as hell and had left him sitting on the porch until they finished. The Clan Head's residence which looked to be the only lived-in house was properly emptied as well.

He carefully skirted a suspicious looking stain on the floor as Kaneda arrived in the middle of his inspection of the Head's residence. Seriously, what sort of messed up kid willingly lived in the same place in which his parents had been slaughtered.

"Guess who gets to clean up all the bodies this time?" he chirped mock cheerfully as Kaneda picked up an envelope which had been addressed to him that had been left on the kitchen counter.

"Not funny man. Being here is bad enough as it is." his brother said with a shudder as he opened the note that had been left for them.

"What the hell?" Kaneda said as he read the note.

"What's it say?" he asked.

"Don't forget to get under the seventh tatami mat from the far right in the Naka shrine." Kaneda replied, looking confused.

"Whatever." he said. Some people had the strangest places for hiding crap they thought was valuable.

&!&!&!&

"So, what do you think this is?" Kaneda asked as he inspected the strange stone slab in the room beneath the Naka shrine that they had decided to take on first.

"Don't know, don't care." his brother Aramaki replied as he sprayed poison and lay down several traps.

The rats in the Uchiha district were exceedingly vicious, much like the Uchiha themselves had been. He'd discovered that when he'd accidentally knocked over a rusted trash can in an alley, sending several of the damn things attacking rather than fleeing like normal rats. As they say, you are what you eat, and those rats had been eating Uchiha homes for years. Something had to have rubbed off on them.

He really shouldn't have cut corners on those effing seals in places he didn't think anyone would notice, even if the ten-year seals were a bitch to make. If he knew that anything that lived here would mutate like that back then, he'd have gone through all that trouble and then some. He could see beady red eyes peering out at him from a hole in the corner, and he was almost willing to swear that there were tomoe in them.

"Lets hurry up and get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps Nii-chan." he said, shuddering.

Aramaki stopped and stared at him. He knew why. He hadn't called Aramaki Nii-chan in a good long time.

&!&!&!&

The ANBU commonly known as Monkey scowled as he peered into the Uzumaki boy's window to make sure the brat was okay and not plotting Konoha's imminent destruction, as that was part of his patrol on this route. He had been put on the route that he'd avoided like the plague for years after Rat had broken his leg in the middle of his patrol. He hated this route with a passion, and for good reason.

He and the Uzumaki hadn't hit it off on the few times they'd encountered each-other face-to-face, and it didn't have anything to do with the Uzumaki's unwelcome tennant. To say that the Uzumaki disliked him was an understatement, and frankly the feeling was mutual. After the little misfire that had landed Uchiha Itachi in a dumpster while he'd been recovering from another mission in the hospital, the Uzumaki had come after him with a vengeance.

Nothing less could be expected of the offspring of the Red Hot-blooded Habanero.

He still had nightmares in which that boy's mother came back from the dead to beat the shit out of him for calling her Tomato.

The Uchiha boy was over, and he was scowling at the dinner the Uzumaki prepared. Apparently Instant Ramen wasn't good enough for the prima donna that according to rumor was related to the Uzumaki. Considering the fact that the Uzumaki was now wearing the red and white uchiwa, he supposed that rumor was fact.

It figured. No-one could hold a grudge like a Uchiha.

&!&!&!&

Sparrowhawk sighed as she did her patrol of the Uchiha district. The place was empty and dead. Nothing ever happened here these days. Patrols were much more fun a few years back when she and the others could take bets on who was cheating on who and the like. There was none of that now. There was just emptiness, emptiness and desolation, emptiness and desolation and the Senju Exterminators running screaming from a house as an army of rats pursued them.

Wait, what?


	8. Wrong End of the Stick

It had been two days, and Naruto was already ready to tear his hair out. Sasuke had nitpicked everything, and wouldn't stop complaining.

"Naruto do this. Naruto do that. Naruto clean that up. Naruto, we're not having cup ramen for every meal even if it's cheap and you're a bottomless pit." he mocked as Sasuke launched into another lecture on how a "Proper" Uchiha was supposed to act.

He was beginning to see why his cousin Itachi had murdered the clan. He was about ready to strangle Sasuke after living with him for only two days. If the rest of their relatives had been like this...

Grumbling, he picked his dirty clothes up off the floor and dropped them into the laundry hamper that Sasuke had brought with him.

Seriously, who brings a laundry hamper with them when staying over at someone's place?

&!&!&!&

Sasuke ignored the stunned look on Sakura's face when he'd accepted her dinner invitation. He normally wouldn't have done such a thing considering the potential consequences, but after two days of nothing but ramen and no hope of anything else for the rest of the week, he was ready to jump at the chance of a nice home cooked meal. He would have done the cooking at Naruto's place himself if all of the food in the fridge and cupboards that wasn't instant ramen wasn't spoiled.

After training was over for the day, he, Naruto, and Kakashi would be heading over to the Haruno residence as he'd made the invitation of the rest of the team a condition of his acceptance.

Training went the way it always went with Kakashi. Activate Sharingan, watch, copy, and ignore Sakura's squealing over how awesome he was.

&!&!&!&

Haruno Barako did her best to smile graciously as Sakura's teammates entered her home. It was hard as hell. First there was the Demon who had taken her older sister, then there was the Uchiha that her daughter was so foolishly infatuated with, then there was the sensei who had a reputation for being a pervert. If that wasn't bad enough, she vaguely recalled there being some sort of scandal involving his father back when she was a teenager.

While she pitied the Uchiha boy for being left all alone in the world, she really didn't lament the loss of the Uchiha Clan all that much. Let it not be said that she spoke ill of the dead, but she was one of the ones who was sure that the boy's father had been the one to unleash the Kyuubi on Konoha.

After the Uchiha died, their sins may as well have been wiped clean in the minds of some. In her mind however, the Uchiha deserved what they got. She would not hold things against the survivor who was both innocent and ignorant of the crimes of his parents however.

As they sat at the dinner table, she struggled to find a topic of conversation.

"That is a very interesting outfit Naruto-kun." she finally said after a while of searching about for something to say. The boy was wearing an orange and black coat that seemed vaguely familiar for some strange reason and black pants.

"Yeah. I got it at the place where Sasuke buys his clothes. The old man behind the counter was weird. First he tried to give me the Namikaze clan symbol, then he tried to give me the Senju clan symbol, then he tried to give me the Uzumaki clan symbol before he gave up and gave me the Uchiha clan symbol like Sasuke told him to." the Demon replied.

Hatake Kakashi who had yet to remove his face mask in her line of sight, but who had somehow managed to finish his meal during the brief distraction that had been caused by a nearby explosion which had turned out to be one of Sakura's tags going off randomly reacted strangely to the Demon's statement.

"Sasuke thinks that the old man thinks that I'm the Yondaime's cousin or something." the Demon continued.

This caused another unusual reaction in Sakura's rather stoic looking sensei.

"But..." Sakura started, looking confused for some odd reason.

"The whole Senju thing is because I got Senju ancestors like everyone else in Konoha. My mother was an Uzumaki, so that one's what Sasuke calls self explanatory." the Demon continued as if Sakura hadn't interrupted.

"Oh?" she said, suddenly finding herself curious. "Who was your mother then Naruto-kun?"

"Dunno, other than the fact that her name was Uzumaki and that her great-grandma couldn't marry her great-grandpa because she had to go back to some place called Whirlpool." the Demon replied. "Monkey ANBU-san called me Habanero's brat a few times though."

Her husband made a rather strange choking noise at this that sounded suspiciously like "Tomato". She would have to ask later. Based on the appraising looks her husband was giving the Demon, it was possible that he knew who the Demon was talking about.

All too soon, the meal was over and she was almost gladly ushering Sakura's teammates out of the house. The Demon had atrocious manners, and the Uchiha boy was rapidly losing her pity. He was just as stuck up and arrogant as the rest of his clan. Why they put him within a mile of the Demon she didn't know, considering the possibility that his father or his mother who had also been missing that day could have passed down the secret for controlling the Kyuubi.

The sensei was the last to leave. When he did, he turned to them with a cold look in his eye and said "Say anything about what you heard this evening, and I will kill you myself".

She turned to her husband and child in confusion only to see a dawning look of realization come across her daughter's face which was soon replaced by an expression of total shock, then denial.

"What is it sweetie?" she asked as soon as the door was closed.

"It can't be. He can't be." Sakura said.

"What is it?" she asked again.

"The Namikaze were a minor clan that originated near what is present day Kirigakure. At the time of Konoha's founding, there were only two surviving members, a mother and a son. But..."

"But what sweetheart?" she asked, worried about her daughter's distressed expression especially in light of her sensei's threat.

"All of the Yondaime's other relatives died long before a child Naruto's age could be conceived!" Sakura said.

Her husband looked shocked then thoughtful before muttering "This is beyond what ninja call S-ranked, and we can't tell anyone."

Her husband didn't look like he would sleep anytime soon when they crawled into bed that night.

"What is it dear?" she asked her husband who looked extremely disturbed.

"He knew. He knew that something like that was going to happen, and he planned for it." her husband said.

"What do you mean dear?" she asked.

"Don't you think it's rather odd that the Kyuubi wasn't seen at any time between the Valley of the End and that day twelve years ago?" her husband asked.

"Well, now that you mention it, yes, it could be considered odd." she replied.

"If that thing could be sealed in the Uzumaki boy, it could have been sealed in someone else." her husband said. "Someone who was growing old, someone whose seal was weakening, someone that the Uchiha could have discovered and made a play for."

"Oh god." she said, seeing where her husband was going with this.

"Senju and Uchiha for control, Uzumaki for longevity. That Uzumaki boy's birth was no coincidence. The Yondaime personally made sure that there was another host waiting in the wings in case of something like what happened that day. The only problem was that it wasn't born in time to prevent most of the destruction. The instructors back at the academy all said that Uzumaki Kushina was special when I asked why they kept her around before I dropped out to take care of mom. All I saw back then was a massively incompetent foreign loser with a loud mouth and a penchant for pranks." her husband said.

"You mean..."

"The Yondaime never asked anyone to do what he wasn't willing to do himself." her husband said. "The wily bastard sacrificed his own son long before it was even conceived."

&!&!&!&

Sakura silently slunk away from her parents' bedroom door, almost too shocked to process what she'd heard. The Yondaime hadn't killed the Kyuubi, he'd sealed the monster into a child he'd intended to throw away from the start, a child that practically the entire village hated for a reason they wouldn't name, which now that she thought of it was too extreme a reaction for all of the pranks Naruto pulled.

Kakashi-sensei knew. He had to have known considering the threat he'd made.

Who else knew?

Everyone in the village. Everyone except us children.

That had to be the reason they hated Naruto, the reason why they had told them to stay away from him, the reason they blamed Naruto for _something_ she couldn't quite catch when she listened to the odd whispers that surrounded the whisker cheeked boy.

Naruto had been born a minute, an hour, or a day too late to foil the Uchiha's plans, whatever they had been. Because of that, everyone blamed him for what happened, blamed him for everyone who died.

That was so unfair.

And, like her father and Kakashi-sensei said, she couldn't tell anybody.


	9. Naruto's Apartment

Aramaki sat on the porch of one of the Uchiha homes next to his brother Kaneda and sighed. The job was finally finished. Done. The last of the rat carcasses had been hauled away, and the final seal had been laid. He had been tempted to burn the Uchiha District to the ground and call it a day many times this week, but had refrained from doing so. Barely.

Being rescued by one of the ANBU that first night had been particularly embarrassing.

"I'll never cut corners on a job again, I swear!" Kaneda said. "That had to have been the most difficult experience of my entire life."

"See that you don't." he said."This had been probably the most difficult experience of his entire career as well."

The Uchiha District was completely rat free, and they couldn't collect the sort of pay that would usually come with a job this size since the Uchiha had had a ten-year warranty on the job they did eight years ago, and they were fixing Kaneda's little screw-up.

"Lets go tell our _customer _that it's safe to move back in, and go home." he said as he got up, dusted himself off, and tiredly trudged out of the Uchiha district.

After walking for what seemed like forever, he and his brother reached the contact address the Uchiha had left. He raised his hand to knock on the door, and was stopped by a loud yell coming from inside.

"For the last time Teme, I'm not illiterate!" a voice that he found oddly familiar yelled.

"You sure could've fooled me. How the fuck did you learn the Kage Bunshin out of a scroll anyway Dobe?" the voice of his Uchiha customer yelled back.

He tentatively knocked on the door, hoping that the two inside the apartment wouldn't be too upset at the interruption. The door was answered by a very familiar looking blond. A familiar looking blond who was said to be descended from Uchiha Madara himself.

Frankly, he didn't see it.

"Whatddaya want?" the blonde said, sounding grumpy and mumbling under his breath.

"I wanted to inform Uchiha-sama that the job is finished, and that he can return to the Uchiha District anytime he chooses." he replied.

"Finally!" the Uzumaki snapped.

Okay, maybe there was something in the boy's expression that could be construed as Madaraish.

"Pack your shit Sasuke, you're leaving!" the blond Jinchuriki called over his shoulder.

And that was that. The job was done, and all that was left was to go to the bar. The bar where there were whispers that the Senju and Uchiha lines had been deliberately crossed to create a perfect host for the Kyuubi.

&!&!&!&

Naruto grumbled as Kakashi called him aside during training. The last time the man had done that had been to tell him to never ever mention his blood link to the Yondaime again. It turned out that there really had been death threats from Iwa, and that he was damned lucky that the information about his most famous relative hadn't gotten out when he'd yelled it for the whole world to hear the day the ANBU landed in the dumpster.

Oddly enough, Kakashi hadn't called him over to tell him to hide more of his ancestry or something. Instead, the man had wanted to ask how he'd been holding up because of the week with Sasuke. He honestly didn't think that he could spend that much time in close quarters with the other boy again without strangling him. If he never heard another lecture on how a "Proper" Uchiha was supposed to act again, it would be too soon.

After asking how he'd been holding up, Kakashi made a request that had made him sit there and laugh in the man's face. The man who knew how well he got on with Sasuke even after the revelation that they were family and that they mixed like oil and water wanted him to move into the Uchiha District with the other boy since he didn't think Sasuke should be alone any longer. Apparently, he seemed to think the fact that the rats had been removed would have removed the rest of his reservations about that place as well.

He wouldn't move into the Uchiha District even if Sasuke offered him his own house free and clear. His apartment was his home, and it had been his home since he was six, and nothing would make him give it up.

Naruto didn't know what had woke him up that night. When he did, it was to find a man in a weird orange mask with only one eye hole staring at him.

"What the fuck are you doing in my apartment asshole?" he yelled.

The strange man who reminded him of the ghost he'd seen when he was eight despite the fact that his mask was orange and his hair was short didn't move, not even when he grabbed a kunai and chucked it at him. The Kunai went through him and imbedded itself in the wall behind him. The masked ghost who now that he thought about it was more than likely a genjutsu cast by some creepy pervert didn't move.

"Fine!" he yelled. "That's it! I'm moving to the Uchiha district. At least everyone will be too creeped out by that place to sneak in in the middle of the night and bother me there!"

He then grabbed one of the boxes Kakashi-sensei had rather pointedly given him and started chucking clothes into it.

&!&!&!&

Madara silently watched as the Jinchuriki stormed about the apartment throwing random items into boxes. He knew about his promise to Itachi, the eldest of the two surviving descendants of Izuna's line, but he had to come and see for himself in regards to certain rumors. As long as he didn't maim or kill anyone, make any threatening gestures, or act out on said gestures, everything would be fine, and nobody would need to know he had been here. Nobody except for the Jinchuriki who had woken up while he'd been carefully scrutinizing his features, looking for any trace of his own.

Frankly, he couldn't see it.

The blond spawn of that bastard Yondaime looked over from where he had been chucking random ninja equipment into a cardboard box.

"What the fuck are you still doing here dattebayo?" the blond yelled. "Get fucking lost before I hurt you."

The boy decided to back up his threat by...activating his Sharingan.

Okay, now he saw it. The kid wasn't descended from his non-existent spawn however. If that "Dattebayo" was anything to judge by, he was one of Izuna's. That meant that the boy's mother Kushina whom he'd had a sneaking suspicion which he'd refused to face had been...He was going to tear this place to the ground with his bare hands the minute Itachi died. He wouldn't have attacked his brother's descendant if Konoha hadn't...

"Holy shit! You're real!" the blond Jinchuriki yelled, looking completely stunned.

"Yes I am." he said. "And, you'd better have better manners the next time I see you."

"What makes you think I wanna see you again?" the blonde who had proven to be a near carbon copy of his who knew how many times great-grandmother with his brother's Sharingan yelled.

And people wondered why he and Izuna never sent anyone to Whirlpool to get more information on the baby...

"Whether or not you want to is irrelevant. You will be seeing me again." he replied. "The answer to the question of whether or not I will chose to allow one of my brother's blood to die in agony, or not depends entirely on you. You can blame your father for interfering with my plans when the time comes, as I wouldn't be killing you otherwise."

"Whatever creepy pervert dude." the boy said as he moved into a more threatening stance.

"Don't try my patience boy." he said, showing the child his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan before departing.

He would curse the Yondaime forever. If that bastard hadn't interfered, he wouldn't have to cause the deaths of two of his brother's line. Kushina was gone due to his actions, and her son would be joining her in a few short years.

&!&!&!&

Sasuke groaned as he opened the door. Naruto had come pounding on his door at an insanely late, or rather early hour. When he opened it, it had been to see the blond on his doorstep with a couple of boxes at his feet.

"Okay!" Naruto yelled way too loudly. "Where do you want me to put my stuff?"

"What made you change your mind?" he asked, honestly surprised that the blond would do so so quickly if at all considering how adamant he'd been about keeping his crappy little apartment.

"Some creepy pervert with weird eyes snuck into my apartment and said he was gonna kill me." Naruto replied.

He hastily ushered Naruto inside, and checked for signs that Naruto had been followed. Much to his relief, he couldn't see anyone, even with the Sharingan active. He quickly got Naruto temporarily set up in It- _His_ old room and went back to bed only to discover that he couldn't fall asleep.

If he ever found that pervert who had threatened his cousin, he swore he was gonna kill him.


	10. The Amazing Flying Rumors

Naruto yawned and stretched, and the instant he realized what day it was, he leapt out of bed. Today he would be participating in the Chunin Exams! Kakashi-sensei had given his team the permission forms the day before with the choice of whether to turn them in or not, and there was no way he was going to chicken out now. He was most definitely ready, no matter what Sasuke thought.

After racing through his morning shower, swiftly dressing, packing any supplies he thought he might need for the Exams and then some, he headed downstairs to make breakfast. Breakfast this morning was a simple affair of an egg, a slice of slightly blackened toast, and a glass of milk. Once breakfast was over, he swiftly cleaned his dishes, raced out the door and down the street, and then turned and raced back to lock the door of the small house that was the furthest from the Clan Head's residence in the Uchiha district.

Sasuke was fine in small doses. A few hours here and a few hours there were okay but, actually living with him? That was a different kettle of fish entirely...

He'd lasted three days with Sasuke before he'd stormed out and found a different house. Sasuke had wanted him to stay as a matter of security. He refused. Security be damned, Sasuke's constant lectures on what a "Proper" Uchiha was and wasn't had driven him up the wall, across the ceiling, and back down the opposite wall. The final argument over the fact that he hadn't yet filled out the paperwork to legally change his name had been the last straw.

In the beginning, he'd been excited about the fact that Sasuke was family, and that he was a Uchiha, and he'd been willing to go along with the plan to change his name to reflect this. As time passed however, he became reluctant to change his family name. It had been his mother's name, and it was all he had that had been hers. If he changed his name, he'd lose that. Sasuke didn't understand. As far as he was concerned, anyone who was a Uchiha should be named Uchiha, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Soon, after he'd raced back once more to grab an item he'd forgotten in his haste to leave, he reached the main gate to the Uchiha District where Sasuke was already waiting, apparently just as anxious for the Chunin Exams to start as he was. They set out to the Academy where they would be meeting Sakura together in somewhat companionable silence, one of the numerous grades of silence he'd been forced to get used to and had begun to correctly interpret.

As they walked to the Academy, the Hyuuga they passed all glared at Sasuke. The morning after, or technically the morning he'd arrived at Sasuke's home with the intention of moving in, Sasuke had leveled some serious accusations at the Hyuuga clan before he'd managed to inform him that the creepy pervert with the weird eyes that had invaded his apartment had eyes that looked like the Sharingan, but not. Sasuke had panicked then, believing that Itachi had been in his apartment. He wasn't so sure though, the creepy pervert in the mask seemed older somehow. The damage to the relations between Sasuke and the Hyuuga clan had already been done however, and the fact that Sasuke had refused to apologize because he had been in the wrong meant that that particular bridge was yet to be rebuilt.

When they reached the Academy grounds, Sakura was already there waiting for them to arrive. She gave Sasuke that strange greeting that she'd been giving him lately, and gave him that odd sad smile she'd taken to giving him around the same time. He didn't know what that was all about.

&!&!&!&

Kakashi smiled when he saw that his entire Genin team had been there to meet him, prepared to enter the Exams. He had been half worried that he would have had to severely disappoint two of his students by turning them away. He hadn't been sure whether or not he should have entered his team in the first place, as the dynamics of the team were shifting, and were somewhat unstable at the moment.

He knew and understood how and why the changes in interaction between Naruto and Sasuke had come about. Sasuke had been alone and without family for more than four years, and Naruto had been alone since the beginning because everyone who knew of Naruto's heritage had to hang back in the shadows in case they accidentally gave something away in regards to the boy's paternity that could get him killed. Discovering that they were family, even though they were distantly related, had caused the both of them to latch onto each-other. They had personalities that mixed like oil and water however, which created conflict, especially after Sasuke had decided to take on the role of parent rather than elder sibling for some strange reason, which was something Naruto had done without for his entire life and didn't know how to deal with. There were strong bonds between the boys, as well as some affection to counterbalance the conflict though. Sasuke's overprotectiveness that bordered on possessiveness was somewhat worrisome however.

The change that had come about with Sakura in regards to Sasuke and Naruto was concerning, as he didn't know the source of it. Sakura's affection toward Sasuke had cooled a great deal all of the sudden and he didn't know why. Instead, she had a more watchful attitude around him, as if she thought he might somehow be a threat. It was her behavior towards Naruto that was most puzzling. Rather than being her usual aggressive self around him and violently fending off his advances, she seemed to be verging on the border of tears every time she saw him.

He knew why Sakura was afraid of him though. He'd nearly killed her and her family over something they hadn't done. They had taken his threat seriously, and kept quiet about the revelations that had been made over the dinner at the Haruno residence. The rumors that Naruto had been deliberately bred to be a Jinchuriki had come from a different quarter that had fortunately left Naruto's father's name out of it. Apparently the ANBU who had fell into the dumpster after Naruto had started yelling about being related to three of the four Hokages had started to wonder exactly why the Kyuubi's vessel was related to both the Senju and the Uchiha, and remembered the story of the Valley of the end where Uchiha Madara had controlled the Kyuubi, and Senju Hashirama had taken it from him. Upon hitting the erroneous conclusion that Naruto had been deliberately bred for his role, he'd gone and gotten completely smashed and said a few things he shouldn't have.

After wishing his team luck, he stepped aside and let them into the classroom, hoping that Sakura would stop flinching every time she got within ten feet of him sometime soon. His interrogation of her and her parents hadn't been that bad, considering what the T&I department would have done to them if he'd handed them over to them instead of dealing with the situation himself.

&!&!&!&!&

The Sandaime Hokage groaned and rubbed his temples. That had been the third group of concerned citizens in as many days to drop by and demand that he separate Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. The rumors about the Uchiha clan's involvement in the Kyuubi incident which had died down after the massacre had risen back up again full force and then some. One of the side effects of these rumors as well as the odd rumor that Naruto had been deliberately bred for his role that had recently cropped up was that some people were seeing Naruto as the innocent victim he'd been that day. A number of people who had turned up in his office had come out of actual concern for the boy, concern that they hadn't shown at all over the twelve and a half years the child had been alive.

If only that concern weren't misplaced. According to the psychological profile he'd received just that morning, Uchiha Sasuke would sooner cut off his own arm than seriously harm Naruto.

&!&!&!&

Utatane Koharu sat in her usual spot in her favorite bar, the same bar she'd been frequenting since her sensei had still been alive. Rather than taking delicate sips of her drink as she usually did, she was gulping it down and already gesturing for another one. Hiruzen was not going to like this...

It seemed that someone had remembered that the Yondaime had taken Kushina out of the village to give birth, and had coupled that memory with the rumors that were flying around the village to create a whole new rumor.

According to the new version of events that was going around the village, the Yondaime had gotten wind of the impending Kyuubi attack, and he and a team of ANBU had gone to the Uzumaki residence in the middle of the night and forcefully dragged a heavily pregnant Kushina to a secret location outside the village where they forced her to give birth before she was due. From there, the rather fanciful account grows confused as one version of events has the Uchiha learning of the Yondaime's plan and sending someone to kill the ANBU team and the Sandaime's wife who had served as midwife, and a more romantic version of events has Kushina's husband whose identity was as yet unknown to Konoha's general populace though there was a great deal of speculation racing out to rescue his wife, not knowing that the reason she'd been taken had been because the Kyuubi had been about to attack.

In a third account that she heard form while she was sitting there downing sake like it was water which was closely related to the more romantic second account and sounded like the plot for a mediocre romance novel, someone had somehow discovered Kushina's heritage (there was now a romantic story about a Uchiha falling in love with an Uzumaki during a mission to Whirlpool before it fell and dying before they could be wed attached to this tale), and had decided that one of her children would be a perfect vessel for the Kyuubi should the need arise. The person whose identity ranged from the Yondaime to herself had then come up with a plan for dealing with the Kyuubi which involved using said child without telling Kushina and/or her husband/lover in this account.

While she found the second and third versions of this rumor somewhat amusing, especially her role in them, Hiruzen hated having his wife mentioned. Hearing that his late wife had been dragged into all this, and placed in the role of a villain at worst, and a rather callous example of a ninja at best would most assuredly send him through the roof.


	11. Of Crushes, Creeps, and Chunin Exams

Kabuto frowned as he looked at the Uzumaki boy who had just entered the room. The boy had turned out to be something of a wild card, but then again that was something to be expected, considering the fact that the boy had snuck aboard one of the ox carts that had been hired to take his and several other teams to the Chunin Exams in Kumo four years ago.

It had been his first Chunin Exam, and one of the Jounin who'd been from a wealthy family and happened to be rather pregnant at the time had refused to hike all the way to Lightning Country. Rather than hoofing it, as was traditional in such cases, Konoha's teams had been given a ride which had been followed out of the village with a great deal of jeering and teasing from the more experienced ninja, and a bit of undue fanfare which had caused a number of the village children to run up to them and excitedly send them off that year. One of the little well-wishers had decided to go on an adventure it seemed, since he had managed to make his way aboard one of the carts the pregnant Jounin had hired during the commotion.

It had been at the end of the first day that they'd discovered that they'd had a little stowaway, which said a great deal about the boy's stealth skills despite the child's current love of over-bright colors. It had been a good thing he'd been there too, considering the fact that one of his teammates had broken his leg while pulling some sort of asinine stunt before they'd left Fire Country, and he and his team would most likely have ended up being forced to turn around and lose a rather choice information gathering opportunity if there hadn't been a "Substitute" available. An Academy second-year substitute who really should've been back in Konoha.

Since Academy students had been signed up for the Chunin Exams as a joke before, there being one famous example from three decades back where one of those said Academy Students who'd been put in as a prank had ended up completely bypassing the rank of Genin, it had been allowed. Somehow, in spite of what he'd thought of as dead weight until the kid had caught an opponent in a rather ingenious trap that had been derived from one of the boy's more infamous pranks, they'd made it past the second phase of the Exam with said Academy student in tow. He'd quit at that point, but the Uzumaki kid who hadn't yet learned a single Jutsu and had the crappiest Taijutsu he'd ever seen, and absolutely no knowledge of Genjutsu or strategy had gotten steam-rolled during his first fight in the Arena a month later.

When he'd encountered the boy again following their return to Konoha, the kid had not known who he was, and had had absolutely no memory of the Chunin Exams he'd participated in, or even of the fact that such a thing as the Chunin Exams actually even existed. Whether or not this had been a result of the rather nasty concussion the boy had received during his bout in the Chunin Exams which had left him unconscious for three days or not, he didn't know. Suffice to say, the boy hadn't made Chunin, so it didn't really matter whether or not Naruto remembered his participation in the Exams when he was eight.

Now, Naruto had yet again done something that defied expectations and threw him for a loop. It wasn't so much what he did though, as what he was. Apparently, Naruto had some Uchiha blood in him, and it had been strong enough for him to manifest the Sharingan. This of course was completely strange, as there had been nothing in what little family records were available for the boy to indicate that that would be the case. There were a couple incidences of "Father Unknown" in the boy's mother's family tree, but none that seemed like they would be close enough for the Sharingan to crop up.

Deciding that he'd spent far too long just staring at the Uzumaki boy who was starting to notice, he headed over to the small group of rookies, hoping to study their reactions to him as he deliberately slipped up in a way a green ninja probably wouldn't notice, as that would tell him a great deal about them, including how observant they are. The carrot he'd be offering them in this case as he gained their confidence as an older mentor figure would be an offer to let them have a peek at his ninja info cards of which he had several sets.

* * *

Ino frowned from her perch on Sasuke's back. Rather than yelling at her and calling her "Ino-Pig" like she usually did when she encountered her rival in love, Sakura had pretty much ignored the fact that she'd come up to greet her future husband. Her approaching, much less touching Sasuke-kun was something that would normally get a rise out of the other girl, but not today.

"Something wrong forehead?" she asked. "You're not giving up on Sasuke-kun are you?"

"You can have him." Sakura said. "I heard my parents talking, and apparently, the Uchiha were responsible for the Kyuubi attack."

"Yeah, I know." she replied. "But, it's not like Sasuke-kun did it. He was like a little baby at the time. 'S why dad never says anything to him about his parents, even though he hates them."

Sasuke who'd been standing stiffly as she held on to him flinched at this, but said nothing.

"You knew, and you didn't tell me?!" Sakura said.

"People don't talk about it, just like they don't talk about what happened to the Yukimori clan, or what that Shimura guy's doing on the Hokage's council of advisors despite the fact that he..." she started, before she realized what she was saying and shut up before she said something that could get her killed. There was a lot of things that "Everyone" knew, but never talked about. It was a real surprise when you ran into someone who wasn't in the know, though she probably should've expected it since Sakura was from a civilian background and therefore didn't have the network her family did.

"I just still can't see Sasuke the same way I used to though." Sakura said, apparently deciding not to ask what had happened to the ill-fated Yukimori clan who'd run out of money during a particularly nasty winter and refused all charity even when it got to the point that there was nothing edible in their compound except..., or why someone like Shimura Danzo was one of the Hokage's advisors despite the fact that his being such was quite the risk.

"But he's Sasuke-kun!" she exclaimed as she squeezed said boy who had yet to get out from under her for some reason even more tightly.

"You might not have lost family in the Kyuubi attack, but I did, and what his family did to Naruto..." Sakura started, working up a head of steam until several shinobi appeared in the room.

"Settle down brats." one of her father's colleagues, a scarred man named Morino Ibiki yelled.

"Aw damn, and it was just getting interesting." one of the foreign Genin muttered.

When Ibiki had ordered them to come up and take a test form and a number, she brushed past the gray haired boy who'd been standing at the edge of her and Sakura's conversation, looking like he was waiting for an opportunity to introduce himself. Seeing as he looked like he was in his late teens, there was a good chance that he was a perv who'd been looking to "mentor" a rookie during the exams. Her dad had warned her about that sort, and how no matter how nice they seemed, you never went off with them alone.

Shuddering over the fact that she'd been that close to the skeevy creep, she grabbed her test and her number and went to find her seat.

* * *

Hinata smiled sadly when she realized who she would be sitting next to for the written portion of the Chunin Exams. She still had a crush on the boy, but she knew that none of her dreams in regards to him could ever come true. He was Uchiha, which placed him in the "never in a million years" category.

It wasn't just that their clans had had something of a rivalry going for decades, a mutual antagonism that had picked up in recent days after Sasuke had leveled some shocking allegations against her clan and refused to apologize even after he'd learned that he'd been in the wrong. The Uchiha and the Hyuuga had always been like oil and water, or Fire and Water rather. The thing that barred her and Naruto from ever marrying in the future despite the fact that he was of a clan of near equal importance to her own was the fact that the Sharingan and the Byakugan were completely incompatible. Any daughters they might have would have serious eye problems, if they weren't born blind that was. There was something about the genes for the Byakugan and the Sharingan that didn't mix properly.

She admired Naruto's tenacity however, his refusal to give up or give in. Knowing the boy's smile was more of a mask than anything, she admired it all the more, because the boy had had the strength to refuse to show anyone that they'd hurt him, that they'd won. She would always admire that, and even though she could never have him, she would do everything she could so Naruto's fire wouldn't go out.


End file.
